POLS 208 Chapter Notes - Chapter 15: Natural Experiment, Randomized Experiment, Random Assignment
5 Dec 2018
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Example - a casino benefits the mental health of cherokee children. The exogenous independent variable (end in poverty via a new casino) arose naturally, independent of the efforts and characteristics of the families. Natural experiment - a researcher looks for and finds a naturally occurring situation in which the independent variable of interest just happens to be exogenous to the outcome (the dependent variable of interest) Ability to make comparisons, either over time or to a group that did not get the treatment. Before and after data - before data provides a counterfactual (what would have been the mental health status of the children had the casino not opened. Comparison group of families not living on the cherokee reservation at all. Most observational studies are not natural experiments. Maybe they would be selected based on merit or need, which would suffer from endogeneity.
